Malmkjær, Kirsten; Prof.Plenary lecture 4The Language that Stayed at Home: Hans Christian Andersen's way with words.As Hjørnager Pedersen (2004: 47) remarks, 'the simple, childlike and original Andersen did perhaps travel around the globe, but ... his art, in so far as it depended on language, did not always go with him'. Comparatively little work has been done on the nature of Andersen's linguistic artistry. This is detrimental to his reputation abroad (great though this is) and to translations of his work, the latter obviously having a strong influence on the former.

I would like to present preliminary findings of a project in which I build on work by e.g Jensen (1929), Møllehave (1985) and Brostrøm and Lund (1991), as well as my own work in this area (Malmkjær 1991; 1993; 1995a and b; 1996; 1997; 2003; 2004), to provide a thorough stylistic analysis of Andersen's language, not only in the world famous stories, but also in other genres.[hide abstract]